English guard and drew upon themselves its fire, which
caused bloodshed in the city's streets. This was the
prelude of the American Revolution. A brief lull came in
the storm. But as Britain still insisted on the right to
tax the colonies and made an impost on tea the test of
her right, rebels in Boston accepted the challenge and
were inflamed to violence; they swarmed on a tea-ship
which had entered the bay, dragged the packets from the
hold, and cast them into the waters of the harbour. When
news of this act of violence reached England, parliament
passed a bill providing for the shutting up of the port
of Boston and removing the seat of government to Salem.
In 1774 General Gage, the recently appointed governor of
Massachusetts, placed the colony under military rule,
and it was cut off from the rest of the country. The
signal for revolt was thus given, and a general revolution
soon followed.

The colonists immediately divided into two parties; on
the one side were those who felt that they must obey what
they thought to be the call of liberty; on the other were
those who had no desire, and felt no need, to follow a
summons to insurrection against His Majesty the King.
The red man began to see clearly that the whites, the
'Long Knives,' brethren of the same race, would soon be
at one another's throats, and that they, the natives,
could not remain neutral when the war broke out.

During these alarming days Sir William Johnson died, when
scarcely sixty years of age. He had seen that the break